Previews

Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring

We go hands-on with Liquid's real-time strategy interpretation of Lord of the Rings, and find a fascinating small-scale model of one of the world's biggest stories.

Spiffy:

Interesting focus on location and unit control; more of Tolkien's world.

Iffy:

The graphics aren't dazzling (yet); AI still needs work.

The RTS genre is always competitive, with many different companies putting out similar-looking games. As we approach the holiday season, in fact, gamers have a wealth of options to choose from, including games that have already been released such as expansions to Age of Mythology, Warcraft III, and C&C: Generals, as well as upcoming titles like Lords of EverQuest and Empires: Dawn of the Modern World.

That's why gamers might have been confused a couple of weeks ago when I previewed EA's upcoming Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth. A Tolkien-themed RTS? Was this the same game as The War of the Ring that's currently in beta? Which will be better? Should I wait for EA's game? It's tough for gamers, especially when they have so many other RTS options.

That's the challenge facing War of the Ring. It would be far too easy for this game to get lost in the crush -- especially after the confusion of EA's LotR announcement. If it does, that would be a mistake on the part of RTS fans. In fact, after playing around with the War of the Ring beta for several hours, I can safely say that gamers shouldn't dismiss it as another "Warcraft III clone" or a company just cashing in on the upcoming release of The Return of the King in theaters. War of the Ring is its own unique take on the property and the genre, and deserves some consideration.

The Power of One

The Dark Lord encroaches on a peaceful village.

The first thing that jumped out at me when I fired up the beta of War of the Ring was the graphics. They were, of course, incomplete, with many of the build animations, spell effects, and cool graphic elements not yet included.

The basic look of the game is very brightly colored and almost cartoonish. For what they are, the graphics are good and seem to be quite functional. It's definitely going to come as a surprise to those LotR fans used to the gritty feel of the movies, though it's worth pointing out the game's art direction. Considering the enormous challenge facing the game's artists -- to make the characters recognizable without looking like the film (Vivendi has the book license while EA owns the rights to the films), they've done a bang-up job. Particularly notable are the Black Riders as well as the Balrogs who make their entrances shaking the entire screen.
Once I got into the game, the real differences of War of the Ring began to come out. The first thing that jumped out at me is that, much like Liquid's previous title, Battle Realms, War of the Ring is all about unit control. Unlike many games, where "more" units are necessarily "better," battles in War of the Ring tend to max out with about 50 units on each side. More than that and it becomes impossible for a player to effectively utilize special abilities -- and utilizing special abilities, not overwhelming numbers, are what wins battles in War of the Ring.

Balrog v. Ent. This is going to be good!

Many of the books' heroes appear in the game as special units. Frodo, for example, can be summoned as an early scout unit. While the little hobbit isn't much for combat, his use of the One Ring makes him undetectable by any evil units, save the Black Riders or the Nazgul King. Frodo also possesses a Heroic Aura ability that allows other heroes to recharge their abilities faster. If you're playing evil and keep getting pounded by Gandalf's Rain of Fire ability, odds are that there's an invisible Frodo around him and now would be a good time to get a Nazgul to the battlefield.

What's even more interesting is the way in which unit abilities begin to counter and cancel each other out. In one instance, while playing as the forces of good, I managed to beat back an evil attack, but I was still losing forces to an unseen enemy. It was only when I managed to get a few rangers in place that their ability to see hidden enemies countered the Haradrim assassins who had been devastating my forces. I realized that, no matter how many units I had guarding my base, a couple of the Haradrim could make all my defenses useless.